And definitely not my last. As many of you know, I have been in two of the Four Horsemen anthologies, and did a novel (When Eagles Dare) in the series. I met James Young at a Libertycon when I was moderating a panel with seven participants. James came into the room and became the eighth. James is a graduate of the Upper Hudson School for Boys, also known as West Point, and is a knowledgeable student of history. He approached me with the idea of doing a story for an alternate history volume on naval warfare. The one rule, not a whole lot of stories on alternate Leyte Gulfs. No problem. I have wanted to write alternate history for a while, and am planning a series based around WW2 (I know, done, but definitely not the way I’m going to do it). But I also had another idea. One that I thought would make a good novel. The problem was time. I would have to live to a hundred to write every idea I had. But maybe a longish short story?

Off Long Island came from an idea I had about the Washington Naval Arms Treaty. For those who don’t know, there was a concern in Britain about the looming naval arms race after WW1. The world was broke after the war, with the exception of the United States, which held debt from almost everyone else. Everyone wanted a larger fleet, but most saw the possibility of going bankrupt trying to fund it. The Washington Treaty was the attempt to stop this arms race. A very successful attempt that limited the navies of the UK and the US, as well as those of Italy and Japan, which were saddled with a smaller size than either wanted. Battleships were limited to 35,000 tons and fourteen-inch guns, though a few sixteen inchers had been built previously. Most countries played with the wording of the treaty, and reported their ships’ empty weight instead of battle ready to sail. Of course, Japan eventually backed out and built the Yamato, the US started putting sixteen-inch guns on their ships, and the Germans, who had never signed the treaty, built the Bismarck and Tirpitz.

Before the treaty both the US and UK had new superships on the drawing boards. The Brits were going to go with battleships in the fifty-thousand-ton range with eight eighteen-inch guns. Along with them would be battlecruisers of about equal displacement and sixteen inchers. All would be fast ships, and the UK would have a battle line second to none. Or would they? The United had decided to go with ships just as large, in most cases a little swifter, with an armament of sixteen sixteen-inch guns, and the same armament in a nine gun configuration for the battle cruisers. The battleships had the same main armament weapons layout as the cancelled Montana class which was seen as the answer to the Yamato. The guns had a longer range than the eighteen inchers of both the Japanese and the Brits, and the weight of sixteen shells was slightly more massive than either eight or nine. Of course, we know what the answer was to the Yamato. The airplane, and the Montana’s were cancelled.

The central ideas for the novel, and thus the short story, was this. There was no Washington treaty, and the UK was forced into a disastrous building war with the US. Tensions were heightened, and as nations tend to do, both concentrated on war with the worst-case enemy. Something happened. I had never finalized what that something was, but in the short story there is a clash of two destroyers, and both go down with all hands. Instant war, and I didn’t have to assign blame (hey, I have a lot of readers in the UK, and I didn’t want to villainize that nation.)

So, war is declared, the United States invaded Canada, the Brits bomb Southeast Florida from the Bahamas, and the UK sends a relief expedition to their possession in the North. After that they try to teach the Colonials a lesson, and range down the East Coast punishing the Americans. And then they meet, Off Long Island. It was a fun story to write, and I hope my fans enjoy it, and possibly give the other writers a try if they haven’t. Chris has helped some incredible writers to gain recognition, while using the talents of the better known. Will I be doing another with his company? Possibly. I have projects of my own. My first traditionally published series. Finishing up what I already have out there. Four more series in the planning stage. But I would be very open to doing more short stories in his anthologies. In fact, with the popularity of their brand, and the talents of the writers working in his Factory, I consider it an honor to be considered. So go out there and get Those In Peril, and find out what might have happened if some things had changed.

As some of you may know from past posts, I put my first two books up on Amazon and Smashwords on December 31, 2011. The first eight months were not very impressive, as I believe I sold about forty eBooks during that time. Then I did the giveaway of The Deep Dark Well, to the tune of over 4,000 copies. Two months later I published Exodus: Empires at War: Book 1, and it started selling well. How well? Over a hundred copies in October, 872 in November, 1,976 in December and 3,088 in January. I released Exodus Book 2 in December, 2011, and sold 1,440 copies that first month. In January of 2012 I sold a total of 8,560 eBooks, and that was when I decided I would do this thing full time in the near future. By the middle of March, 2012 I quit my job and I was suddenly my own boss. So, four years after putting up those first two books, I have sold over 151,000 Ebooks, 1,500 paperbacks, and 4,300 audiobooks, for a grand total of almost 157,000 copies. Six of the Exodus books have hit number 1 in Space Opera or Military Scifi on Amazon.UK, and top 10 on Amazon.US, with one reaching number 2. My total Amazon reviews total over 2,200, with an overall average across all books of 4.6 stars. On Goodreads I have over 2,300 ratings, with a 4.09 star average (4.18 for the Exodus series). We won’t get into money, except to say that I am making a very comfortable midlist (old midlist that is to say) income. So, everything is going well. I would like to do even better. I think most writers would. With the averages of my ratings on Amazon and Goodreads I think I can attract a bigger audience. The trick is actually doing it.

On New Year’s Day I posted that I was going to try for 3K words a day. Then I came down with bronchitis, and have been lucky to average 2K. But I believe the 3K average will come when I’m feeling better. That comes out to about 1.095 million words for the year, or just about nine of the 120,000 word novels I tend to write. It will probably be more like 7 books, and the rest in short stories, blogs, whatever. I have other series in mind, things I would like to work on, but first I need to finish what I started. So, future plans?

Exodus is still the primary focus. I am up to book 9 of the main storyline now. Some have commented that it’s already too long and needs to be finished. The majority opinion is that I can’t do too many books, but I have to disagree with that as well. I am planning a total of twenty books in the main series. Exodus was envisioned as a long series about a grand scale war. Some have said it appears to be World War 2 in space, which it kind of is, but not completely. Being an epic war, I wanted it to have a grand sweep, with successes and failures, advances and retreats, all the things that make up a grand war. While technology advances on both sides, there are no miraculous superweapons that win it overnight. Twenty should get me there, and there will be at least three books in the main storyline in the coming year, with the first release planned for March. Machine War, the side series, is also doing well, though not in the same league as the main storyline. One of the reasons for releasing that series while the main one still progressing was to have continuity between the two lines, without one already having given away the game of the other. There will be at least one book in Machine War released in 2016, and a total of six in the series. I will also put out a book or two of Tales of the Empire, with the first due for release in about two weeks. I like these short story and novelette collections because not only are they fun to write, they are good practice for writing short fiction. There will be some Tales of the Empire standalone novels as well, covering the history of the Empire. I will also write book 5 of the Refuge series, closing in on the finish. I expect 6 books will complete it. This was a series I had great hopes for, but it just isn’t doing it. Maybe some time in the future I can restart it.

In two weeks I will be releasing the first book of the second Deep Dark Well trilogy. I wrote this book back in 2011, prior to releasing my first self pubbed work. I love the storyline, and it opens up an entirely new Universe with endless possibilities. I will probably release a book a year until the trilogy is finished, then see what happens. I have two short stories for invitation only anthologies I need to submit by January 31st, and another two for additional invitation only anthologies in May. And at least one, maybe two, novel submissions for traditional publishers. Now, several popular traditionally published authors have asked me why I would want a publishing contract. The answer is to get more readers. I would like to lock in a series with preferably Baen, do a book a year for them, maybe two, and spend the rest of the time putting out self pubbed. I think I can make it work to the mutual advantage of the publisher and myself.

I have more series in mind for the future. I love the Exodus series, and it has done very well, but it also shows a lot of the things early on that I didn’t know. I hope to avoid the same mistakes in the future. Still, there will be another Exodus series, starting with the contact with the Ca’cadasans and the flight of humanity, up to the establishment of the Empire. I have several space opera series in mind, a standalone sublight warfare novel, possibly an urban fantasy, some alternate history, and a solar system warfare series. And maybe some military post-apocalyptic stuff. I’m not sure when I’ll do these other projects, or even if I will survive long enough to get all of this out. What I do know is I won’t run out of stuff to do.

Already a great year as far as sales, with 6,000+ ebooks going out the door for January. Last year I went to my first scifi convention, Dragon*con, and attended a writer’s workshop. I met Kevin J Anderson, who was a guest speaker at the workshop, and talked with him after a couple of panels at the con. He suggested attending this annual event he puts on in Colorado Springs. Being a recent dirt poor state worker until March of last year, I thought, maybe sometime, but probably not soon. I got to thinking about it in October when the income looked very good for the year, and the Superstar’s early bird price break deadline was coming up, and then thought, why not. Dragon*con turned out to be a great networking experience, and Superstars looked to have the makings of another. So Tuesday I will be getting on an airplane for the first time in twenty-four years and winging it to Colorado. Colorado, in February, for a Florida native? I know, sounds kind of crazy to me too. But it looks like a great conference, and I get to appear on my first panel (I have possibly another coming up later in the year). I will post about the conference when I return. Have also made plans for Liberty*con (hotel and registration), Dragon*con (same) and the Venice Book Fair in April. Venice Book Fair you say. I grew up there, and kind of wanted to appear as an author, not that I plan to make a lot of money at that venue.

Exodus 6 and Book 3 of The Deep Dark Well trilogy will be coming in Spring. After that I will drop TDDW series for the time being, even though I have the first draft of the first book of a second trilogy already on the hard drive (and backed up in about twenty places). I also plan to put out the fourth book of the Refuge series sometime this year. Book five, next year, may see the suspension of that series for awhile, though I always want to come back to the genre bending world of fantasy. Exodus will probably take up most of my time for the next couple of years. I have a lot of ideas for that Universe and the characters that populate it.

And after that? I would eventually like to try my hand at alternate history. I have a love for military history, especially the history of the second world war. Several years ago I started to develop a pair of series at WW2. One would involve Hitler being deposed in 1939, and Stalin launching an attack on Europe in 1943. The other would be more of a scifi idea, with people from the future, with knowledge of history and technology, sending their personalities back in time to take over the brains of several leaders of the Third Reich. Others would do the same with the allies, but there are some twists to that part of the plot which I won’t reveal at this time. Again, that will be years in the future, which give me plenty of time for development.

The last two months I have put up short stories set in the Exodus Universe for fans who can’t wait for the next book. The first, put out at the end of June on the Website, was the story of how Cornelius Walborski came to Sestius, titled A New Life. At 10,000 words it was a long short. At the end of July I added a story about Lucille Yu and The Other Universe Project titled What’s Eating You. I have blogged and tweeted both of the release dates, but really have no idea how many people have visited those pages. I will be putting up another before going to DragonCon. The stories can be read on the web page itself, or downloaded in Kindle, Word or PDF format. The plan is to keep putting them up every month, until there are enough of them to put in a volume to publish.
Today, while attending a committee meeting for the Tallahassee Writer’s Conference, the idea was brought up about putting short stories on blogs as a way of rewarding readers. I thought that was a great idea, and one that has the potential to grow a blog. So starting Monday I will be blogging my short stories, with links to the website. Since they are long, I will probably put each story out in three or four segments, published on different days, much like the old serials that used to play before the movies. For those who want to read them on the blog, they can get the entire story over a two week period. For those who can’t wait, they can go to the website and pick up the whole story. I will also be doing this for some of my other series, like Refuge and The Deep Dark Well, in the hopes of attracting more people to my work. I may also put the first twenty thousand words of novels out, giving people the chance to see far enough into the book so they can determine if its something they want to read. This is another experiment, something being an independent author allows me to do. So next blog out will be the first one in this experiment. Hope you will take the time to read it.

And no, I’m not talking about time travel, except for the kind that goes on in our memories. I went to visit my cousin Frank yesterday. Frank turned 80 earlier this year. He was a high school principle, and had a great many stories to tell. Currently he lives in Mayo, Florida, in a house on the banks of the Suwannee River, the one made famous by the song. Much of the property in his neighborhood is virgin forest, as is the land across the river. I drove south from Tallahassee and through Perry, seeing the old part of the town. Next was Mayo, in Lafayette County, one of the least populated counties in Florida, which has fewer residents than many small towns. Depending on the technology of GPS I missed my turn and ended up in Branford, another tiny village of a town.
Along the way I saw many old buildings that had been around since the 1920s, or 30s at the latest. I passed a courthouse, just like the kind that so many small North Florida towns possess, like miniature domed capitals. Farmer’s fields, owned by families and not corporations, stretched out on both sides of the road, with men in tractors cutting hay or plowing fields. In many ways this was the Florida I remember when my family traveled. I was born and raised in South Florida, along the Gulf Coast, where every building was fair game for demolition, and many were simply knocked down to make room for something new. More fools they for destroying their heritage. In the northern part of the state buildings are left to stand, sometimes abandoned for years, or recycled through one use after another. What I was seeing now was America much as it looked prior to, during and after World War 2. Back when there was no TV, or it just starting with a channel or two. No GPS. Oh, there were modern buildings, a bank, Hardees, McDonalds, a new hospital. But at one point I saw a bank housed in a trailer, and many buildings with rusty tin roofs. Poor people’s housing, much as it had stood for a century, now with satellite dishes hanging from the eaves.
This was America when the world was still a hopeful place, unlike today. When Americans could do anything with their energy and ingenuity, though our English cousins, with a smaller population and industrial base were just as innovative. But we had the drive and energy and determination to do what needed to be done to win a world war and survive a depression. To go to the moon. It was a trip through time, driving across that North Florida countryside. Back to better days? In some ways. Not everything those old buildings looked on in the past was noble. Courthouses like the one I saw witnessed lynchings of men whose only crime was to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, with the wrong skin color. Klan rallies, corrupt law enforcement. Big men bullying smaller. That was part of the fabric of life in those times, and in some places it is still here.
One day I have plans to write an alternate history that explores the world prior to World War 2, and goes beyond the war that we saw to a more horrific war, the invasion of Japan that never was. I really want to do that book to honor my mother and father, and all the other people who lived through that era. To do that I need to understand them. And part of that understanding starts with viewing the world that was around them. A world that can still be glimpsed, at least structurally, in small North Florida towns.